Influence Of Science Process Skills Teaching Approach And Regular Teaching Methods On Secondary School Students’ Achievement In Chemistry In Kisii South Sub- County, Kenya

Abstract

Chemistry which is fundamental to many disciplines becomes increasingly important, yet students‟ performance in it has been low, especially in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) since the inception o f 8-4-4 system of education in the year (1989). This could be addressed by considering the teaching methods, since students‟ achievement is greatly determined by the teaching method used. T his study focused on the influence of Science Process Skills Teaching Approach (SPSTA) on secondary school students‟ achievement in Chemistry when compared with using regular teaching methods (RTM). Further an analysis on how SPSTA influences achievement of learners in terms of gender was also studied. The science process skills which were selected for the study include experimenting, observation and classification. The objectives of this study were: To find out whether or not the achievement of students who are taught through SPSTA is statistically different from that of students who are taught using the regular teaching (RT) methods in Chemistry theory, to determine whether or not the achievement of students who are taught using SPSTA is statistically different from that of students who are taught using the RT methods in chemistry practical, to compare the achievement of the boys and that of the girls who are taught using SPSTA in Chemistry theory and to compare the achievement of the boys and the girls taught using SPSTA in Chemistry practical. The study employed quasi- experimental, Solomon Four non-equivalent control group pre-test – post-test design. The target population was Form Two chemistry students in Kisii South Sub- County, Kisii County in Kenya. The sampling frame consisted of County co educational schools of Kisii South Sub-County. Simple random sampling techniques were used to select four schools for the study. Simple random sampling was further used to select two schools from the sampled schools to form the experimental groups while the two remaining schools formed the control groups. A sample of 366 students in the four schools was selected. SPSTA was used to teach the experimental group while the control group was taught using the regular teaching (RT) methods. All groups were taught the chemistry content on the topic „Salts‟ which is part of the Form Two Chemistry syllabus. Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT) and a Chemistry Practical Test (CPT) were used for data collection. Both instruments were piloted in Nyamira County in order to determine their validity and reliability. The reliability of the CAT was α =0.863, while the CPT had α =0.8528. Data was analyzed using one-way ANOVA, ANCOVA and t-test. Hypotheses were tested at a significance level of coefficient alpha (α) value of .05. Results of the study show that there was a statistically significant difference between the achievement means of students who were taught through SPSTA and those taught through RT methods in Chemistry theory (F = 11.189, p = .000). The achievement of students taught using SPSTA was significantly different from that of students taught using RT methods in Chemistry practical (F= 260.558, p = .000). Further, there was no statistically significant difference in the achievement of boys and girls exposed to SPSTA in Chemistry theory (t = 0.022, p = .983) and the difference in the achievement of boys and girls taught through SPSTA was not significant in Chemistry practical (t = 1.059, p = .295). The researcher concludes that SPSTA facilitates students‟ achievement in both Chemistry theory and Chemistry practical, and that both boys and girls perform equally well when taught using SPSTA. The researcher recommends the use of SPSTA in Chemistry teaching in order to improve the students‟ achievement in both Chemistry theory and Chemistry practical.